This application relates to electronic commerce systems and, more particularly, to systems for facilitating electronic commerce in environments with multiple service providers.
On-line vendors sell a variety of products over the Internet. Users with web browsers may browse a vendor's web site and may purchase products directly from the vendor. Service providers associated with Internet portal sites have attempted to capitalize on their large established user bases by establishing on-line shopping services. These shopping services allow users to shop at multiple vendors without having to establish multiple accounts. Rather, a user may establish a single account with the service provider that is then debited whenever a user shops at one of the vendors associated with that service provider.
Problems with this type of system arises because there are many competing service providers. As a result, users who desire to shop at a vendor that is not associated with a service provider at which they have already established an account are faced with the task of establishing additional user accounts. This is burdensome on the users and discourages purchases.
It is an object of the present invention to provide e-commerce systems that allow users to shop at vendors associated with different service providers without having to establish multiple service provider accounts.